Xll But the greater merit shall appear in this work as a history, the greater will be the regret that the writer did not dedicate more of her attention to render it complete and full, instead of summary. However, the most numerous class of readers are the lovers of biography, and to these it has of late been the practice of historians to address themselves, as Lyttleton in his Life of Henry the Second, Robinson of Charles the Fifth, Roscoe of Leo the Tenth, and many minor writers. Perhaps the prevalence of this predilection may be traced to the circumstance of the reader's thus feeling ioimself to be, as it were, a party in the transactions which are recounted. A person of this taste will, it is hoped, here have his wishes completely gratified; for he will, in fancy, have lived in times, and witnessed scenes the most interesting that can be imagined to the human mind, especially the mind of an Englishman; he will have converst with persons the most celebrated and extraordinary, who~ one party represent as heroes and demigods, the other as demons, but whom, having had opportunity to view close at hand, he will judge to have been truly great men, and to have carried at. once to a high degree of perfection the characters of the warrior, the politician, the legislator, and the philosopher; yet to have had their great qualifications alloyed by such failings, and principally the want of moderation, as defeated their grand designs. He will have accompanied the Hero of the Tale, not only through all the ages of life, but through almost every situation in society, from the lowest that can become noticeable, which Mrs. Hutc)oinson calls the even ground of a gentleman; · to the highest which his principles permitted him to aspire to, that of a counsellor of state, in a large and flourishing republic; he will have seen him mark each with the exercise of its appropriate grace or virtue, and so completely to have adapted himseif to each department, as to appear always to move in the sphere most natural to.him: and, finally, to have maintained so
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